Artist Talk: Hew Locke in conversation

5 Jul 2023 6.30-7.30pm

Overview

Join artist Hew Locke RA and writer Melissa Chemam for a conversation exploring whether creativity can inspire connection.

This event can be enjoyed in person at the Benjamin West Lecture Theatre, or via a digital livestream.

In this talk, artist Hew Locke RA discusses art and connection, inspired by the RA’s Summer Exhibition theme ‘Only Connect’.

Hew Locke produces works that invite us to engage with the past. Chaired by writer Melissa Chemam, this conversation explores the ways in which we re-enact, re-imagine and re-perform history.

Looking to the future, this discussion also focuses on new opportunities for creative connection, and the importance of art in bringing us closer together.

Hew Locke RA spent his formative years in Guyana before returning to the UK to study art, later completing an MA in Sculpture at the Royal College of Art. His work explores the languages of colonial and post-colonial power, and how cultures fashion identities through visual symbols of authority. In 2022, Hew was awarded Tate Britain’s Duveen Hall commission (culminating in his work The Procession) and The Metropolitan Museum of Art Facade Commission, as well as becoming a Royal Academician. His work is held in numerous collections, including the Government Art Collection, the V&A and the British Museum.

Melissa Chemam is a journalist, broadcaster and writer on art, music, social change, multiculturalism, African affairs, North/South relations, and activism. She is the author of the book Massive Attack - Out of the Comfort Zone (2019), and has been published by BBC Culture, Al Jazeera, RFI English, Art UK, CIRCA Art Magazine, the Public Art Review, the New Arab, The Independent, Reader’s Digest, UP Mag and Skin Deep. She also worked as a journalism lecturer and as the writer in residence at the Arnolfini art centre, in Bristol, from 2019 to 2022.

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